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Suzanne Anarde, outgoing vice president and director of Rural LISC, writes in an essay for Shelterforce stating to look at the impact of investing in rural community development on its own terms.

According to Anarde, the demand for big projects promising big-figure results is a litmus test built around an urban context. It's one that rural communities can never pass. This determined focus on absolute size of outcomes fails to understand what impact looks like in rural places and what she call the "ripple" effect.

Anarde address the investment gap, adding that rural investments should be much more than an afterthought to the community and economic development work underway in urban neighborhoods around the country. She pursues that this is not a "takeaway" game for urban, but rather viewing rural as an added value proposition for investors.

Anarde discusses that private philanthropy also tends to marginalize rural places; rural communities have a different nature; and her call for a new scholarship of rural America. Read the Entire Article

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A customized collection of grant news from foundations and the federal government from around the Web.

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